


In the Image of the Dark Lord

by local_doom_void



Series: Methods of Humanity [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Families of Choice, Family, Family Feels, Gen, Identity, Identity Issues, Murder, No Triwizard Tournament, Parent Voldemort (Harry Potter), Professor Tom Riddle, Professor Voldemort really but the tags..., Protective Voldemort (Harry Potter), Protectiveness, Quidditch World Cup, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:14:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29170926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: If nothing else, one thing always stays the same about him: Lord Thomas Voldemort Riddle does not like quidditch.
Relationships: Bartemius Crouch Jr. & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Harry Potter & Voldemort, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Sirius Black & Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Methods of Humanity [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1855237
Comments: 69
Kudos: 395





	In the Image of the Dark Lord

**Author's Note:**

> Oof! I stayed up way too late on a worknight to finish this, because the writing bug got me. Enjoy.
> 
> Voldemort says some stuff in this one. He is not necessarily correct about other people, especially where Albus Dumbledore is concerned.

“There is one last thing before we can adjourn.”

Voldemort does not manage to resist the urge to drop his head back against the headrest of his chair for a moment. In a way it’s amusing how arduously the professors kept their administrative duties secret from the students when he was a child. As an adult he ought to have expected it, knowing what he knows now about large organisations, but still the concept of ‘Staff Meetings During Summertime’ caught him off guard last year. And again this year – as he had forgotten entirely.

Then again, the most recent school year was utterly exhausting. He considers his forgetfulness again, in light of this, and decides to forgive himself.

Somebody else has less self control than he does, though. Perhaps multiple someones. Voldemort is quite sure he heard multiple groans and sighs, after all.

“Merely an announcement,” Albus Dumbledore goes on. He sounds as if he would be chuckling if he were not too tired of meetings to do so. Voldemort immediately feels disgust with himself for being able to intuit the fact. “Many of you may have been aware of the special event due to take place at Hogwarts this coming year. Unfortunately, the untimely death of Mr Crouch has… well, put a bit of a damper on things.”

The fingers of Voldemort’s wand hand twitch when the man says ‘Crouch’. He is briefly thankful that they are hidden underneath his crossed arms and so won’t garner comment. Instead, he tries to remember what ‘event’ this was, and finds he has no recollection whatsoever.

“It isn’t happening after all?” Severus Snape says.

“It is not,” replies Albus Dumbledore.

“Thank Merlin,” he hears Minerva mutter from her seat directly next to him. Based on the fact that this event – whatever it was or would have been – is so disliked by his seating neighbor, Voldemort chooses to also be glad it’s not happening.

There are a few regretful noises from some of the less sensible professors, and Voldemort only feels gladder.

Instead of leaving immediately once the meeting truly adjourns, he waits. He would have waited regardless, considering what he intends to do today, but now he has a real reason besides providing an alibi of sorts.

Also, he’s not done with his tea.

“Might I accompany you to the gate, Minerva?” he asks once they are the only two in the room. She blinks at him – he assumes in surprise, as he doesn’t often ask such things – but she does nod. He pulls his cloak around his shoulders as they proceed from the staff room.

“This may sound idiotic,” he says quietly once they are out of earshot. “But what on Earth was this ‘event’ meant to be?”

There’s a small intake of breath. “They were going to revive the Triwizard Tournament. Didn’t you see it posted?” she asks him.

“Posted?” he repeats, mentally running through all the places things might have been posted. “In the staff room, or the teacher’s lounge?”

“In the staff room. It must have gone up around the end of October.”

What on Earth happened last October?

“I may have been…” He pauses, the better to choose his words carefully. “Inordinately distracted by certain monstrosities.”

“I can’t blame you,” Minerva says. A weary sigh escapes her now. “You really were running yourself into the ground last year, Thomas. You must take it easier this year, understand?”

Was he running himself into the ground? Voldemort considers this, and strangely thinks that she may be right.

“Fortunately, I do not think I will do that this year,” he assures her as they come to the front doors of the castle. “Last year was… a perfect storm, I think they say?” He glances at his walking companion. “As this year we will have neither eldritch horrors haunting the school, nor some undoubtedly stupid Tournament, I expect to be able to sleep better.”

“Good.” Minerva tuts at him. “I do not want to see you putting Bailey’s in your drinks in front of the children again, Mister Moregrave.”

“That happened once, and for good reason,” Voldemort protests without heat. He does not feel that she is actually attacking him, so he considers that perhaps it is a joke.

Once they apparate away together, Voldemort appears in his safe house. He then immediately returns to Hogwarts at one of the less used gates, and slips inside layered with disillusionments.

Only three individuals live at the castle full-time, aside from portraits and house elves – Albus Dumbledore, Rubeus Hagrid, and Argus Filch. It is to the latter’s rooms that Voldemort steals, avoiding portraits and temporarily freezing any that are particularly attentive-looking.

Voldemort unlocks it and enters. The man is not inside, nor is his cat, so the ex-Dark Lord occupies his waiting time by carefully going through the paperwork on his desk. What parchments have the Hogwarts seal on them are both numerous and simple enough to understand, which makes him feel that he’s chosen the best option forwards for everyone involved. Lots of work, not too complex, but not inordinately simple, and much of it physical...

Yes. It’s perfect.

He does find other papers, though, in the form of housing applications. This gives him pause. The presence of so many of them is incoherent with the fact that the office of Hogwarts Caretaker comes with guaranteed year-round housing in the castle. Voldemort’s curiosity is peaked, so he begins to comb through them. A pattern of regular rejections quickly makes itself apparent. Underneath this collection, Voldemort finds job applications in a similar state.

So he applies regularly to live elsewhere, and regularly applies to other jobs…

Is this not a pattern? Voldemort considers that it is a pattern in more senses than one – and similarly, that this is another instance of another pattern entirely. How very Albus Dumbledore-like to trap people.

Not that Voldemort himself hasn’t trapped others. But he likes to think he was rather up-front about it with those who took his Mark. They ought to have known what they were getting into.

Perhaps this plan isn’t necessary after all.

With the thought in mind, Voldemort leaves the castle once more, nobody the wiser as to his presence.

  


Harry interrupts him that evening while he is doing the necessary paperwork. Voldemort has no idea where Black and Barty have gotten off to and does not want to know right now.

“ _So_ ,” Harry hisses, sliding into the chair on the side of Voldemort’s desk where he usually sits to bother the man. “ _How is the World Cup going to work, exactly?_ ”

Voldemort doesn’t look up. “ _What do you mean?_ ” he hisses back.

“ _You only got me three entrance leaves_ ,” Harry hisses. “ _I mean – I don’t mean ‘only’ in the sense you should have gotten more, because they’re pretty rare, right? But I wasn’t sure if – I mean, Padfoot can come no matter what, because he’ll be Padfoot. But I think Barty really wants to go, too. And I just – I don’t know what to do?_”

The nature of the issue suddenly reveals itself to Voldemort. He looks up, because now doing so is important.

“ _That’s not quite how I intended it_ ,” he hisses, meeting Harry’s eyes.

The child squints at him. “ _Oh?_ ”

Voldemort tries not to see himself in that ‘oh’ – not in the tone of it, nor in the tilt of Harry’s head. He goes on. “ _You have three entrance leaves. One is indeed for you, because it is your hatchday present. The other two are yours to use as you see fit, I suppose, but I did imagine you would use them on your two friends._ ”

“ _But Barty –_ ”

“ _I have two other entrance leaves for Barty and I_ ,” Voldemort interrupts. “ _I will be taking him for other reasons. I would appreciate if you do not mention it to him, as I have yet to inform him of the fact that he will be going._ ”

Harry’s mouth forms into an o-shape, briefly, before he grins widely. “ _Thanks dad!_ ” he exclaims, and leaps from the chair. “ _I won’t mention anything! Can I go write Ron and Hermione a letter now?!_ ”

Voldemort waves him away, and the child scuttles off.

He does not think about the form of address that was used for him. He does not believe he is mentally ready for that particular introspection.

  


The next staff meeting is a week later. Voldemort still has not had that particular introspection, but what he does have is a sheaf full of paperwork that he dumped into the system a couple nights ago. He arrives early, and takes a circuitous route to the staff room which could ostensibly involve him coming from his classroom. As expected, and hoped for, one Argus Filch rushes up to him. “You there, Moregrave!”

Thomas Voldemort Moregrave turns gracefully to meet him, after a second of calculated pause to indicate surprise. “Mr Filch?”

“You lot got that staff meeting now, huh?”

“We do,” he says, and waits. A letter is thrust at him, and he takes it.

“Give that to the old man for me,” Filch says. Strangely – or perhaps not so strangely – he seems much less crankier than he usually would be. “I’m retiring and I don’t want to hear him trying to get me to stay on.”

The smile that tries to crawl across Voldemort’s face is far too likely to be manic, and has to be suppressed.

“Of course,” he says. “I will give it to him. Do you perhaps want me to wait until later in the meeting, or are you already moved out?”

That gets him a suspicious squint. Voldemort’s heart suddenly beats in his chest, and he worries he allowed the mania to show. But all that Argus Filch says is, “You’re not even gonna argue?”

He puts extra effort into keeping this smile small, and whatever passes for ‘gentle’ on Thomas Moregrave’s face.

“I am more than aware of how unwelcoming the wizarding world makes itself for squibs, Mr Filch,” he says. “If you have found something better, then go do it.”

This seems to be enough. The man retreats, and Voldemort tucks the letter into the chest pocket of his robes before continuing on.

  


Albus Dumbledore goes pale and still when he reads Argus Filch’s letter near the end of the staff meeting. Voldemort forces the cackle back down his throat, and once the man has announced Filch’s retirement to the public, he launches his own counterplot in response.

Everything goes _perfectly_.

  


“You seem happy,” Sirius Black says suspiciously when he arrives home after the staff meeting. The man is sitting on the couch in the living room, and peeping over the top of it to glare at him.

Voldemort reaches up his sleeve to unhook the transformation stone, and feels the brief, unpleasant tingle of his sinuses rearranging themselves in his skull as he becomes himself again. A number of possible responses populate his mind, and he toys with them, unsure of which he wants to use.

Sirius Black is an oddity. He does not know what to make of the man. The other members of this household – if indeed they _are_ a household – are simple. Voldemort understands them, and their roles and relations to one another, and to him. He is the head of the house – the paterfamilias, to use a traditional term. He didn’t quite intend this, but he is one now. Nagini is his companion, and their relationship is the easiest – simply one of habit and of mutual support. Harry is his – ward. He is responsible for the child’s welfare and in turn the child, apparently, provides him with some sort of emotional comfort that Voldemort finds difficult to name. Barty is simply _his_. Perhaps in the terms of this Roman analogy, Voldemort is the man, Nagini his wife, Harry their child – ward, he corrects himself – and Barty their servant. Slave? Servant? The distinction seems useless for Barty in particular, and Voldemort doubts the boy would object to either one.

Sirius Black does not fit into the analogy. Voldemort still is not sure why he is here.

“And now you’re staring at me,” the same man says. His voice remains suspicious.

“I am merely contemplating your inscrutabilities,” Voldemort replies, and makes his way to the kitchen. What sort of drink ought he to indulge in to reward himself for a plan gone so well?

“Whenever you talk you sound like a prat,” Sirius Black says as Voldemort is reaching for a wine glass.

This is an unusual continuation of conversation. It hasn’t yet happened before, and Voldemort remains curious, so he indulges it. “Surely you were taught this form of diction as a child?” he asks as he pours out a healthy amount of red alcohol. “The Blacks did ever emphasize rhetoric.”

“Maybe I ignored it.”

“Orion is likely weeping in his grave.”

“You don’t get to talk about my father like you knew him.”

This surprises Voldemort enough to make him pause mid-sip.

Sirius Black is still on the couch when he turns, lying against the far arm-rest. There is a kitchen table, the width of a hallway, and two open thresholds between them, yet he feels they are perhaps communicating properly for the first time.

“… Pardon me?” he finally says.

The man – less sallow, now, but still rather standoffish – crosses his arms over his chest. “My parents sucked,” he says, “but I won’t let _you_ talk about them.”

Voldemort takes a moment to parse this.

“… You do realise,” he says slowly, “that I attended Hogwarts with them, and that this is the source of both my knowledge and my commentary?”

“You did _not_.”

“I did,” Voldemort says firmly. “Walburga was a year ahead of me, and Orion three years behind. I overlapped with Walburga until my seventh year, when she had graduated, and was entering my fourth year when Orion arrived as a first year. We were all in Slytherin, so of course I saw them around more often than not.”

The effect of this little speech is apparently to render Sirius Black mute.

For some reason, Voldemort is tempted to carry on the conversation. He pushes it away and goes to find somewhere else to exist before the man can recover his faculties, still no more certain of where in the analogy Black might possibly fit.

  


“Ron and Hermione said yes!” Harry announces the next morning at breakfast.

“What did they say yes to?” Barty asks quietly after Voldemort has nodded.

“Oh, just something we’re planning to do before school starts again.” Harry waves his hand in the air in dismissal. “It’s just that dad’ll have to apparate me, so I thought he should know.”

Voldemort pays careful attention to Barty’s face. It stills a bit at the appelation, but does not fall as much as it would have at the beginning of the summer. He deems it progress, and puts it aside for now.

  


“Harry.” Voldemort approaches the boy in the hammock. “I require… advice.”

Harry peeks out from beneath his book and squints at Voldemort. “Advice?” he repeats dubiously. “You?”

“Shocking, I know,” Voldemort drawls.

“What kind of advice?”

“I am aware you know how to cook,” Voldemort says slowly. Harry nods. “Do you know how to bake a cake?”

“I can bake lots of cakes,” Harry says. “Dudley always wanted to try new ones.”

For a moment, Voldemort feels light-headed. Then he realises he was enraged, but it had come and gone so quickly that he only felt it as a disturbance in his balance.

“Murder’s bad,” Harry says.

“ _Is it always?_ ” Voldemort hisses, before switching back to English. “Never mind that for now. I am a passable cook, but I have never baked. I would ask for your assistance.”

“You actually want to let me cook?” Harry says. “Me, and not Barty?”

“Barty cannot be involved,” Voldemort says quickly. He glances over his shoulder, just in case, to ensure they are still alone. “He is not to know we are baking.”

“Oh,” Harry whispers. “I _see_.”

“The critical day is tomorrow,” Voldemort confides as Harry hops out of the hammock.

“How will you keep him from coming into the kitchen, though?”

Voldemort smirks. “I have a plan for this as well. You will help with this step.”

“I will?”

They find Black sleeping on the couch as a dog. Voldemort hisses loudly, and the dog-man has at least the decency to wake up and immediately jump off. This makes Harry’s glare worth it to have to endure. 

While the child convinces the dog to do what Voldemort wants, Voldemort himself retrieves Barty and glamours him until he is not too obviously related to Crouch. With the dog-man and Barty both thus removed, guaranteed to be out of the house on a rather long walk into town for groceries, Voldemort and Harry begin to debate the pros and cons of various confections.

Harry was not lying. He _does_ know quite a lot of recipes. They settle on a simpler chocolate and strawberry cake, and though it comes out a little lopsided, Voldemort finds himself strangely happy with his first attempts at baking.

“ _Do you have a place to hide it?_ ” Harry hisses.

Voldemort shows him the secret cupboard inside the pantry and swears the child to secrecy.

“ _That’s awesome_ ,” Harry says, but allows himself to be sworn. Voldemort is pleased.

  


The boy did not, apparently, think his birthday would be marked in any way. Voldemort has to hold in a scoff, because those tears are certainly real tears, and he has no desire to make the boy cry even harder.

If this is the reaction to a cake alone, he worries what the reaction will be to the paperwork, and to the two World Cup tickets he has hidden underneath the cushion of his seat. The answer turns out to be a boy who insists on kneeling at Voldemort’s feet for the rest of dinner.

He cannot say he is intrinsically opposed to this, however, so he makes no comment. He thinks that perhaps this is the method Barty chooses to communicate gratitude, which is allegedly the relationship that humans feel in such situations.

“ _Do you think he is happy?_ ” he hisses subtly to Harry, just to be sure, when Black is distracted by his own rather large slice of the cake.

Harry gives him a look that Voldemort can only call withering. He thinks he may even have seen it before, on his very own face. “ _I definitely think he’s happy._ ”

Voldemort can only nod. “ _Good._ ”

  


Edward Moregrave is Thomas Moregrave’s younger cousin. He is – as is necessary to cover up the state of Barty’s interpersonal skills and his dependencies – a bit simple, and unable to live on his own. His mother, who previously cared for him, has recently died. He is not magically bereft, though, and can certainly clean and caretake – even for a castle as large as Hogwarts is.

And, of course, he is being recommended by Thomas Moregrave, who has, despite having only two full years of teaching under his belt, rapidly become a respected member of the staff among both his fellow staff and by his students. Albus Dumbledore, for his part, is far too eager to receive a new application for a caretaker who might – under usual circumstances – be considered easily manipulated. But perhaps, Voldemort reflects, that works in his favor.

It’s not as if Barty would take Dumbledore over _him_ , after all.

  


There are many things which Lord Thomas Voldemort Riddle does not know about himself. He has found some answers since 1992, when he began to ask these questions, but not all of them are answered. In fact, most of them aren’t answered. However, he knows one thing was true for Tom Riddle, and that thing has remained true for him in all his incarnations.

He doesn’t really like quidditch.

It just feels so pointless. He can admit, of course, that he has indulged in his own pointlessnesses before. But brooms are uncomfortable to sit on, so he would never enjoy playing the sport, and the crowds always scream too loudly, until his skin crawls on his flesh and makes him want to do something drastic, in return, to silence them, so he does not enjoy the watching, either. Nothing about it is appealing to him.

Barty loves quidditch, though. And he can conjure very effective earplugs for himself these days. With a book to read, it’s not nearly as bad as he expected it to be.

  


Thus far, Voldemort has avoided the scrutiny of Molly Weasley upon his false identity as Harry’s ‘uncle’. She did not have a reason to look at Thomas and Edward Moregrave, or at Edward Moregrave’s dog companion, with suspicion, either. So even though she was there, Voldemort does not think she will come after him.

It does mean that he goes to rather complex methods to pick Harry up once the child is swept back to the Weasley tent after the game, which ended in such a frankly ludicrous way that he almost laughed aloud in the middle of the stadium. If nothing else, Sirius Black’s animagus form is useful for passing notes to the child. When using the muggle method for such things, Voldemort has found that most wizards tend to become oblivious.

Because of this, he is waiting quietly in the treeline, Barty and Black already delivered safely home, when he sees it.

Well, _them_.

He shouldn’t look. But he’s _curious_ , so he moves closer to the floating, shrieking person. Then the panic begins in earnest, spreading through the campground, and Voldemort disillusions himself before making for the tent where he knows Harry is. Extracting the boy is his first priority – then he can investigate whatever this is, and if he ought to do anything, or not.

He ends up accomplishing both at once. The child tumbles into him in the middle of fleeing with his two friends, and Voldemort becomes visible in the same moment that he notices the robes.

The masks, specifically.

It’s as if he’s been punched in the ribs. Breath leaves him, and he stares dumbly, uncertain of what emotion he feels. He must be feeling something, for this isn’t the apathy he often feels when he sees something that does not affect him. Technically this _doesn’t_ affect him, either – Harry is right here, and he can easily grab the child’s wrist, tug him away from the both less and more dangerous adults in the main track. With a belated professorial instinct, he grabs Ronald and Hermione as well, and apparates them all to a location much deeper in the nearby forest.

He feels something breaking under his will when they land. He realises, too late, that the wards they had put up ought not to have allowed him to apparate. But of course they would have. Those are the anti-apparition wards that _he_ developed for raids and home invasions. They bend for him, for those with the essence of himself that is the Dark Mark embedded in their arms, and for nobody else.

With this revelation, he understands what emotion he feels.

How _dare_ they.

“ _Dad?_ ” Harry hisses carefully. Voldemort comes back to himself – becomes aware he hasn’t let the children go, but has instead tightened his grip. He releases them, flexes his fingers.

He has not been this angry in a very… terribly long time.

“Harry,” he says. The sound of his own voice, strangely, grounds him. “You have your wand?”

Harry nods, pulls it slightly out of its holster to show him.

“Very good. You are to stay here with your companions. I doubt any dangerous adults will enter this far into the forest, but set up one of the shields I taught you just in case. Do not leave with anyone you do not absolutely trust if you are not sure who they are.”

“You’re not staying?” Ronald asks quietly.

Voldemort turns his gaze to the red-headed boy. It provides him with a gap of time during which he can search for words.

“I find myself displeased with certain people,” he manages to say. “You are capable of taking care of yourselves in a relatively safe location. And I would not like…”

He feels himself teetering, as if on a precipice. His body is off balance, for all his feet are firmly on the forest floor, heartbeat throbbing in his own inner ear.

“I am sure,” he finally says, straightening up at the cost of his center of gravity, “that you will not want to be near whatever I am going to do to them.”

He apparates away before he can finish falling.

It’s strange. Here he thought he was so very certain of who he was – who he had become. How his pieces fit together. Identity was different than questions having answers, and he had known he was not solely the Dark Lord Voldemort. Not anymore.

But was he ever really the Dark Lord Voldemort? Did he in fact ever confront that man? For all he thinks of himself as Voldemort, he does not know if he actually _was_ Voldemort. Or maybe Lord Voldemort is not the same as Voldemort. Perhaps he was a Dark Lord all along, and his name – Voldemort – had nothing to do with that path at all.

That must be it, he thinks, as he wraps himself inside a battle robe that he only wore to save Barty. It had a different purpose then, so that what he wears now is barely the same item of clothing. He is not saving anyone for now. His wand comes to hand without needing to be asked, pale against the darkness that is himself and his clothing. If he thinks on it, he can already taste the blood in the air.

Voldemort could be a man who is not angry all the time. He likes teaching. He enjoys reading books in quiet solitude. Voldemort is tired of fighting, and though he is good at it, he prefers his hermitage (infiltrated by others as it has become).

The Dark Lord is nothing but rage. (But doesn’t he have the right to be angry?)

How _dare_ they use his wards. How dare they wear those masks. How dare they prance around when they are disbanded. How dare they make people think of the Dark Lord’s possible return, when Voldemort is _retired_.

(A part of him recognises that his current path of action is a bit self sabotaging in that regard. But all the same, _he cannot let them_.)

He apparates back to the campground. The transformation stone lies cold on the closet shelf where he left it.

  


One skill of the Dark Lord that he has always appreciated in himself is his ability to move quickly yet silently. He slips through the chaos, a dark shape in the shadows. His red eyes have not been enhanced to appear to glow, and so he does not draw even that sort of attention. Some panicked eyes fall on the shadows in which he is lurking, the closer he gets to the epicentre of the incident, but none apprehend him or his reality.

He enjoys this.

Smokelike, he flies the last few steps and lands behind a wrecked tent. His once-followers are chanting, and have not even noticed him. It’s Latin, he thinks, and the repetition of sanguis makes him presume it relates to blood purism. Yet it isn’t even grammatically accurate, and this enrages the Dark Lord even further than he himself thought possible.

He aims a blast directly at the center of their group. Two are tossed from their feet with yelps. The rest scatter. The muggles held aloft fall to the ground, and the Dark Lord doesn’t really care about them, but because their harm was what those fools sought, he petulantly casts a blanket cushioning charm on the ground to ensure the non-magicals are not more injured than they already may be.

Then he darts away again, to hunt them down. The first he finds tripped up by a wreck they clearly destroyed earlier – ironic, he supposes. It also makes them easier pickings. He shoots the mask right off their face, revealing a horrified Mulciber with a trickle of blood down his chin from a split lip.

The man breathes in. Something comes out which may have been an attempt at words, but nothing that is valuable. The Dark Lord is too fast for him, whether he wants to deny it, to exclaim in shock, to plea for mercy. He severs the man’s left arm at the shoulder, kills him the moment understanding settles in those eyes.

There will be some kind of explanation needed for this later, he knows. That is for Thomas Voldemort Riddle to deal with. Here and now, all that matters to him is crushing these maggots to a paste under his heel.

Two more kills go smoothly until something strange happens. Rather, they go smoothly until he hears a shriek that did not sound like any of the once Death Eaters he is hunting. The Dark Lord pivots on his heel, flings himself as smoke in that direction based on instinct alone.

He finds there a scene that involves a masked and robed man holding a smaller human by the scruff of his robes, threatening them. The smaller one has brown hair, and though they’re trying to fight, they are also clearly wandless. The Dark Lord looks around once he lands, finds what might be that wand rolled away near an upturned outdoor dinner table. It is dark, so he summons it to hand to better look.

When it settles in his hand, his insides become ice. The burning, hateful rage, the Dark Lord’s insignia, vanishes. With a sickening vertigo, he slams back into himself, becomes Thomas Voldemort Riddle once again. Becomes aware that his motions are angular and predatory, that his movements are too smooth to be human. Aware that there is blood on his gloves.

The wand in his hand belongs to a student named Cedric Diggory.

But though the Dark Lord is gone for now, Voldemort is still capable of murder. He is also better at duelling than whatever man is trying to strangle _his student_ , so when he aims a kick at that mask and slices the dark robes and the flesh beneath with cutting curses that will be a bitch to heal for any healer, the man shrieks and drops his quarry. Cedric Diggory clutches his neck, coughing, and Voldemort uses his own body weight as a lever with which to swing the Death Eater away from the boy. Physical fighting is very difficult for most mages to counter, and so it is with this man. He crashes into that same table from before and stays down.

Voldemort has half turned to his student – to ensure his student is _safe_ – before he remembers what he currently looks like.

The boy has scrambled farther away. Voldemort can’t apprehend his expression before he sees movement in his peripherals and snaps back to the masked man, who is upright, if kneeling.

“M – my _Lord_ …?” he whispers, hoarse.

Voldemort grits his teeth beneath his own cloth mask. He thinks he hears a whimper from his student. (And why would he not? As far as Cedric Diggory is aware, if a Death Eater thinks that a mystery figure is the Dark Lord Voldemort, then the mystery figure may as well _be_ the Dark Lord Voldemort – and the Dark Lord Voldemort is, of course, a murderous maniac.)

He almost laughs in the Death Eater’s face.

“No,” he says instead. His own voice is quiet, yet he can feel himself lisping – unwittingly doing even more to confirm his own identity. Belatedly, he realises that he recognises the voice before him, too, as Walden MacNair. “As this organisation is disbanded, I am not ‘your Lord’ anymore.”

He can’t help the mocking tone as he says his own once-honorific. He wishes he had not confirmed it. Mister Diggory’s whimpering is louder now, and he does not like it. He may like pain, yes, but not in those who are _his_.

MacNair seems too bemused to speak. 

“But – ” he finally forces out. “But – our work – the mudbloods, they – !”

Voldemort is really very tired of all this. If he could go back in time, he would tell his younger self not to bother currying the money and power of a pureblood base. It simply isn’t worth the eventual headache.

And then MacNair whirls on the boy after a particularly loud whimper, wand out. “Shaddup! _Avad_ – ”

Voldemort darts in before he can think and crushes the man’s hand. His incantation becomes a shriek of broken bones, and then an aborted choking noise when Voldemort seizes his jaw and twists until his spine has snapped.

“ _You will not hurt my student_,” he snarls as he kills MacNair, and cannot tell if his English is merely so lisped as to be unintelligible, or if he spoke Parseltongue in full.

Ritual strength is at least good for something, he considers, as the man’s corpse drops to the ground. There is gore on Voldemort’s glove. He examines it for a moment, feeling altogether more exhausted than he thinks he ought to.

With a thought, his wand – white, yew, _Voldemort’s_ – is in his hand. “ _Abrasi_ ,” he mutters, watches as the blood peels itself from the fabric. He repeats this process for his other glove, and the main portion of his robes, until he thinks he may be clean.

When he turns, Cedric Diggory is pressed up against a tent and the couch sticking out of the tear in the canvas – expansion charms failed, tut tut, Voldemort hears himself thinking nonsensically. Then he looks again, and sees the boy somehow maintaining a shield around himself, despite his lack of wand.

Even though it’s not exactly needed, Voldemort can admit that he himself is a potential threat as far as the boy is concerned. He also feels pride. _He_ taught this child how to nonverbally cast a shield charm just last year, and the child can put it into practice in the field.

Ideally Diggory should have run for it while Voldemort was killing the other aggressor, but one can’t have everything. Maybe he will take over the quidditch pitch and grounds to have the NEWT class run more complicated mock survival scenarios this year.

He waits. Diggory isn’t meeting his eyes, but looks paler than he ought to be. Voldemort supposes this is terror.

His very presence inspires terror, and he hasn’t even been aggressive towards the child.

That is…

He can’t describe the emotion this fact inspires. He settles instead for digging in his pocket for the wand he picked up, and summons a dim fairy light in his free hand. He holds them out together, wand held by the casting branch, not by the handle, light tilted so the details of the craftsmanship can be seen.

“This is yours?” he asks, forcing his voice to lose any hint of lisp. He isn’t quite successful, but it will do.

Diggory finally looks at him. Voldemort doesn’t know how he could possibly make him feel less threatened, and so stays still.

“... y – ” is whispered before the boy’s voice catches. He manages a trembling nod.

“Good.” Voldemort places the wand on the ground outside the shield. (He could pierce it to send the wand directly into the child’s hands, but feels that is not a smart idea at the moment.) “Try to evacuate. I did not disable all of the idiots yet, and that shield will become less stable the longer you hold it.”

Then he steps away and leaps upwards, to become smoke. He sticks to shadows again, keeps low and flies around once, twice, to see the red-robed Aurors gathering up the scattered, gibbering Death Eaters. One masked figure looks to be close to escaping, racing for the forest, and so Voldemort swings by and takes one, two, three pot-shot curses at it until it falls with a crunch and a shriek. Only then does he disapparate further into the woods, crouching in the upper branches of trees until he finds the one he left the children under.

He checks his gloves again. They do not seem red, and the black will hide it, he hopes. Before he drops down, he pulls his mask down, puts his hood back. Stows his wand.

Then he falls. His silenced boots barely crunch on the leaf-litter, but immediately three wands and three wide-eyed children whip around to face him anyway. He holds his hands up, preparing some sort of proclamation as to his identity – but the wands all go away before he gets to the point of noise. Harry breaks from the shield they’ve set up, popping it as he rushes towards Voldemort and flings himself at his waist with a hissed cry of “ _Dad!_ ”

Voldemort automatically reaches down to place his hands on Harry’s shoulders. He really does hope he got all the blood off. “Harry,” he says in reply.

Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger are staring at him. He abruptly remembers that Ronald will have grown up hearing horror stories of the Dark Lord as he appeared to most of the population, and that Hermione, while not growing up with such stories, will nevertheless have easily laid her hands on first-hand accounts of him and perhaps even some of the few, rare still pictures that exist of him, when he was sighted during raids.

He looks back at them. He does not have anything to say about this – can’t see why he’d have to justify his choice of wardrobe to children, anyway. But he supposes he will answer their questions, if they have any.

“Can we go?” is all Hermione Granger says. “I think that you took us _very_ deep into the forest when you apparated us here.”

“You were safe, were you not?” Voldemort says, but allows the children to take his hands anyway.

Because he is not a fool, he apparates them to the less secure safehouse. Harry recognises it, and relaxes. Voldemort makes to perform the necessary spells to strip any tracking and scrying anchors from the two children who have not been in his clutches for the summer. This requires a long discussion of just what he will be doing, especially when he forgets himself and draws _his_ wand for the task.

Ronald pales, and points to it. “That’s the… that’s _it_.”

For a moment Voldemort is almost confused. Then he looks down at his hand and realises which wand he holds – yew, pale, _his_.

“I suppose it is,” is all he says. Then he looks around the sparse, dusty sitting room they stand in. “I know I must have at least one spare around here somewhere…”

“What?” Ronald sounds confused. “But you’ve got a wand in your hand already.”

Voldemort blinks at him. “Are you not apprehensive at having it pointed at you? Is that not why you pointed it out?”

“Oh,” says the boy. “No, I just…” He pauses. “That’s kind of wicked, innit?”

“Kind of wicked,” Voldemort hears himself repeating in a deadpan.

“Is it carved like a _bone?_ ” Hermione blurts out abruptly. “Seriously? Did they actually sell that to an eleven year old?!”

“I nearly didn’t match with any wand, so perhaps there was no choice,” Voldemort snaps. “Will you _kindly_ stop so I can scan you properly?”

  


Once all the children are cleared, they apparate twice more to other safehouses, and then finally into the backyard of Voldemort’s house proper. When Harry immediately tries to drag his friends off to ‘show them around’, he taps Ronald on the shoulder before the boy can get too far.

“You will immediately write a note to your mother regarding your situation, and specifically the fact that you are safe and that Professor Moregrave will return you home tomorrow morning,” he says.

“... So, is the story that Professor Moregrave found all of us and evacuated us, or that Harry’s uncle found him and left us with the Professor?” the boy asks. Voldemort approves of this show of intelligence.

“I prefer for Harry’s uncle to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible,” he confirms. “You may mention that Professor Moregrave evacuated the three of you at once, as you were stuck together like glue. I am sure she will not find this unusual.”

“No, probably not,” Ronald says with a nod.

He escorts the child in and shows him to the study and the parchment. He also warns him not to touch any of the shelves unless he or Harry is there to point out which are cursed, and once he has found Harry and Hermione in the kitchen making tea with Black nipping at their heels excitedly, he goes to find Barty and instructs him to mail Ronald’s letter for him. The boy stares at Voldemort’s ancient raid clothing in awe, but does not say anything. He only nods and says he will make sure it’s done.

Only then, with everything mostly taken care of and the knowledge that nobody is likely to be cursed by a stray book, does Voldemort venture upstairs and lock himself in his bedroom suite. He strips the battle robes from his body, a snake shedding a ragged set of scales to reveal something new beneath, and then goes further than that and takes a bath. Perhaps it’s not the time for such things, but he still feels _raw_ , and needs this _now_.

It isn’t the murder. He knows this. Murder isn’t the problem. It has never been the problem, for him. It should have been, but it wasn’t, and Voldemort has long since accepted that in this, he is unnatural and inhuman.

He does not feel badly that he destroyed his once-followers. He does not want followers anymore, not beyond Barty – and Barty is hardly just a follower. The boy is better than a follower. The boy understands Voldemort – knows him. Barty can anticipate Voldemort’s desires, to a certain degree, but so often he does not assume. He asks.

Perhaps that’s the problem. Perhaps it’s the assuming. What did they think, anyway? Who does that grotesque show help? Nobody. It terrifies the people who witness it, and if your aim is terror, then certainly it functions. But Voldemort is long past wanting terror from his very appearance in the vicinity. For people to be terrified of you is for them to be primed to notice you when you appear, and he dislikes being noticed these days. He has always disliked it, really. He has always preferred to be alone. He was doing so well at being alone, and quiet, and unnoticed.

And then those fools have the nerve, the _audicity_ , to dare assume he would enjoy this offering made in his image – for Voldemort holds no illusions that it was made in his image. It was a feeble attempt to summon the memory of the Dark Lord, to control it, and perhaps even to shore up their own assumed loyalty in the event that same Dark Lord ever returned to them.

The way to power is through the people with the power, if they perceive that power to be under threat. But Voldemort no longer wants power of that sort.

He’s very sure of this. Even if he is a Dark Lord still, he holds no love for those who abandoned him to bodilessness.

  


When finally he rises from his bath, the skin of his fingertips has wrinkled from the water. He wraps himself in a comfortable, soft pair of black pajamas, puts a silver dressing gown on over them, and goes to find the children. They have congregated in Harry’s room, where they are all sprawled around on the floor playing some sort of board game. Voldemort recognises it, distantly, as one of the presents Black acquired for the child’s birthday.

Nobody appears to notice him, so he reaches out and carefully knocks on the doorframe. Harry immediately jumps, and accidentally sends a piece flying. “ _How do you sneak so good, Dad?_” he hisses.

Voldemort supposes he’s glad it’s still hissing, at least, though he does not like that look that Hermione is sending to the child.

“Has the letter been sent, mister Weasley?” he asks.

“Yeah, Barty took it.”

“Good. As Harry may tell you, I do not care how late you stay up, but Barty prefers to rise early and to serve breakfast early. Immediately afterwards I will assume my Thomas Moregrave shape and return you and miss Granger to the Weasley homestead, so do be awake or be prepared for my particular method of being an alarm clock.”

“He means he’ll curse the mattress to flip you onto the floor,” Harry stage-whispers.

“The mattress-flipping spell hardly qualifies as a curse in the classical sense,” Voldemort says, but does not bother to argue the point further. He is far too exhausted for such things. “I am retiring. Do not be too loud.”

  


The children are, remarkably, awake and ready to go at the time he asked of them. Voldemort appreciates this. The fortunate thing is that Thomas Moregrave is not (yet) considered a target for extensive interrogation as to Harry Potter’s welfare. All he must state is that he ensured the children were all fed for the night and morning they spent at his house, and Harry Potter did not once seem trepidatious about returning to his maternal uncle’s custody.

Molly Weasley appears dissatisfied with this. Ronald takes the opportunity to poke his head into the conversation. “Harry’s really happy with his uncle, mum. He always says so, and he actually looks _forward_ to summer vacations now.”

The child makes the briefest of eye contacts with Voldemort as he says these words. There is something serious in them – a sentiment Voldemort does not recognise.

Yet he also cannot deny the funny feeling that enters his ribcage at the implication that – yes – Harry _likes_ living in Voldemort’s home.

  


When the newspaper comes, there is no mention, nor any allegation, that the Dark Lord Voldemort was present during the World Cup Attack.

He wonders about that.

  


Harry sits with him in the study that day. After a long period of working in silence, he finally looks up and hisses.

“ _Are you okay?_ ”

Voldemort stares at him for a long moment.

“ _... I am… complicated_ ,” he finally replies.

Harry pulls his chair closer. Oddly, it helps.

They read together until Barty calls out that he has finished dinner.

  


“You killed _Death Eaters_ ,” Black says, gaping at him after coming up to Voldemort of his own accord on the patio after dinner. “ _You_ killed _Death Eaters?_ ”

“I did,” Voldemort says. “So?”

  


“Did you hurt them?” Barty asks him as they share a bed once again. “For being faithless?”

“Yes,” Voldemort murmurs. “I did.”

  


When he drops Harry off at the Express, the child solicits a hug. This year, Voldemort knows how to give it.

  


“Remember,” he lectures Barty, “the transformation stone will endure all _Finites_ and all specialised de-transfiguration spells. So long as it has firm contact with your bare skin, it will protect you from discovery. Do _not_ remove it unless you are certain you are alone and in a safe place.”

The boy nods vigorously. They have purchased him new robes just for this role, that of Edward Moregrave. He looks the part even without the stone, but with the stone, his hair is darker, and his freckles much less obvious. His rounded face is still round, hair less wavy, but longer – they have allowed it to grow out in the eight or so months since his rescue. His new wand is cherry wood and unicorn hair, purchased from a small French wandmaker who Voldemort is quite sure nobody in Britain has ever heard of.

“I have had your quarters placed next to mine,” he continues, “under the pretense that if you have an episode, family calms you down. If there is not a door that connects them as I requested, we will simply make one.”

“Yes, master,” Barty whispers.

  


“Black,” Voldemort says, when he goes to find the man before they leave. He makes his best attempt to be neutral about his tone, and his expression.

“I don’t like you,” Black snipes.

“I am aware. Know that I am heartbroken,” Voldemort says with flat sarcasm. “Are you coming? Harry will be at Hogwarts, and I will not have you living in my home while I am not here.”

“I’m only doing this for Harry and Barty, not because you said so,” the man grumbles, but transforms. He stands pointedly so that Barty is between Voldemort and him, but does not bark. Voldemort doesn’t ask for more than that.

  


When he introduces Barty, as Edward, to the other staff, he thanks his past self for having the foresight to explain why Edward Moregrave will be anxious around others – why he will stutter and lose his trains of thought. The boy doesn’t even need to act. Everyone is seeing what they want to see – the image Voldemort has painted for them seems to be coming true, so they question nothing more about it. Even Albus Dumbledore – suspicious, blame-loving, paranoid Albus Dumbledore – does not cotton on to anything amiss.

“I am sure we shall love having you here, Edward, my boy,” he says, eyes twinkling.

Voldemort bites down the instinctive retort that the boy is _his_. It is difficult, but he manages it, and soon after Barty obliges him by pretending – or perhaps truly being – overwhelmed, and needing his ‘cousin’ to bring him to his new bedroom.

There is a door between their quarters after all, and Voldemort wonders why he expected that he would have to do it himself.

  


If possible, Thomas Moregrave’s ovation at the Welcome Feast is even more vigorous than it was last year. For a moment, he wonders if he was temporarily deafened by it. Once the children have settled, he dares a bewildered glance at Minerva.

‘Why?’ he mouths.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Thomas, really,” she murmurs to him. “Did you forget your anti-dementor lesson plans and your free chocolate stash so soon?”

**Author's Note:**

> “ _Shut up!_ ” Cedric Diggory screams at breakfast, only a week and a half into the term. Voldemort, caught mid-sip of coffee, lowers his mug just enough so he can frown down at the scene at the Hufflepuff table in interest. “Shut _up_ , Smith! You can’t know what I saw, you weren’t there! I’m not lying!”
> 
> The enigmatic ‘Smith’ appears to move to rebuff the claim, but Diggory interrupts him. “He had red eyes and a wand made from bone! _I know what I saw!_ ”
> 
> Ah. Perhaps he has made a miscalculation.


End file.
